Let Me Save You
by Riveting Red Pants
Summary: Raven gets injured in battle and only Beast Boy can save her.


Let Me Save You

It was another battle against the ridiculous hive, just another day. Jinx was doing her weird running with her arms behind her thing, Mammoth was throwing some big heavy object at a flying Starfire, who yawned with the routine of the fight, and Gizmo was buzzing around on his little helicopter thing while Cyborg shot his laser cannon at him. Beast Boy turned into a dog (which he happened to know Jinx was terrified of) and started to run at her, Raven actually _giggled_ as Jinx ran away in terror, and that made Beast Boy turn back to stare at his teammate as if to ask _is everything okay?_ He turned around just in time to see Gizmo throw some sort of exploding knife thing at Raven, who was caught off guard. Beast Boy morphed back into himself,

"RAVEN! LOOKOUT!" but it was too late, the knife was lodged in her side, and she fell to her knees.

"OH MY GOSH! YOU ACTUALLY HIT HER!" Jinx screamed, hands covering her mouth. The knife beeped, primed to explode. Beast Boy ran forward and yanked the knife out of Raven's gray skin, and threw it as far as he possibly could, completely oblivious to the resulting explosion. He knelt down and picked up Raven. Starfire launched a few more green blasts towards the hive as they ran away in the terror of actually hitting someone, and then the titans were rushing back to the base, Raven in Beast Boy's arms.

"Just hold on Rae, you're going to be fine." BB told her as she moaned in agony. When they got back to the tower, the kitchen table was cleared off of the moldy mess left over from breakfast days ago, and a tablecloth was spread over the table, Raven was placed on it and the titans gathered around to inspect her wounds. Raven was much different from any of them, her odd grey skin healed in vastly different ways. And her blood was actually purple. The titans knew taking her to the hospital would be pointless, as she was unable to be healed by human medicines.

"Rae . . . how do we fix you?" Cyborg asked, trying to press cloths to her wound to stop the blood flow. The cut was deep, about four inches in her side. Raven's pale skin seemed to be growing paler, and her eyes started to close. Beast Boy took her hand.

"Raven you have to tell us how to fix you. How do we make the pain stop?" Beast Boy asked her.

"OH PLEASE FRIEND RAVEN! TELL US HOW TO FIX THIS!" Starfire began to sob uncontrollably.

"Get her out of here!" Cyborg told Robin, who nodded curtly and wrapped an arm around Starfire, leading her away from the room. Cyborg and Beast Boy turned back to Raven just in time to see her entire body be enveloped in a cocoon of black energy.

"NO! RAE!" BB shouted, trying to somehow stop it. Cyborg held BB back.

"Maybe this is how she heals. All we can do is sit by and wait." Beast Boy shrugged off Cyborg's hand and sat down at one of the kitchen chairs, putting his hand against the energy field. It was hard as a rock; there was no getting through it. Cyborg pulled up a chair and sat down on the opposite side of the table, and the two settled in for their long night's watch. The hours seemed to drag on without a change, and Beast Boy began to get more and more worried.

"What if this thing is hurting her?" He asked Cyborg.

"It looks like her regular energy mumbo jumbo stuff. How could it be hurting her?" Cyborg answered, bored.

"Well I don't know. What if it's some trick from Gizmo's exploding knife thingy?" BB asked, becoming frantic.

"It's not." Cyborg said, raising his eyebrows in annoyance.

"But how do we know for sure?!"

"We don't."

"But-,"

"BB, shut up." Beast Boy silenced himself, and instead just thought about all the things that could go wrong. After a few hours, well into the night, Cyborg got up. "Nothing's happening, you can watch over her right?" BB sat up and nodded solemnly.

"Yeah, I'll stay with her."

"Good. I'm gonna catch some Z's." Beast Boy watched Cyborg leave and then leaned his chin on the table, one hand still outstretched to rest against the energy field surrounding his friend. At around four in the morning, his eyes started to droop shut, and try as he might, he couldn't stop himself from falling asleep completely.

He had never had a dream like this before, and it terrified him. Everything was dark, black even. He was lost in this world of inky blackness, running around for something, some way out, but he couldn't find one. He seemed to be running forever, and then he came up to a small figure, lying on the cold black floor. She was on her back, her purple hair splayed around her, her purple leotard shredded in places, with her dark purple blood coating her side, where the knife had struck her. She turned her head to face him when he walked up.

"Beast Boy?" he knelt down,

"Raven? Are you . . . how do I help you?" Raven seemed to be breathing heavily in pain.

"How did you get here?" Beast Boy shrugged.

"I don't even know where 'here' is." He answered. "I think I fell asleep while you were in some sort of black energy cocoon thing." Raven nodded a little.

"That sounds right."

"What is that thing?" Raven grimaced in more pain and beast boy moved around to her other side to inspect her wound. He ripped the sleeve off his uniform and tried to press it to the wound, but black energy seemed to leap from it and strike his hand away. "OW! Rae! I'm just trying to help!" he shouted.

"It's not me. My powers are trying to heal me, but . . . it's not working. They are used to healing me emotionally, but physically . . . they just saw you guys as a threat so they closed me off from you, trying to protect me while I am injured." Beast Boy gasped.

"So you're just bleeding out inside that thing?" Raven nodded. "How do I get it to go away? How do I make it stop? How do I heal you? How much longer do you have?" Raven grimaced again, and groaned in pain, clutching at her side as more purple blood gushed out from in between her fingers.

"The only way for you to help is for you to . . . it would cause you so much pain Beast Boy. I couldn't do it to you. . ." Beast Boy leaned in closer, as close as the energy would seem to let him.

"Just tell me what to do Rae. Please. Let me help you." Raven closed her eyes tight and practically screamed, clutching her side with white knuckled hands. Beast Boy wanted so bad to hold her and tell her everything would be alright, but he knew if he tried to touch her, the energy would lash out. "PLEASE RAE! Just let me save you! Just this once!" Raven was panting, a fine sheen of sweat on her clammy skin.

"We have to form a psychic bond and you have to absorb the wound." Beast Boy raised an eyebrow,

"Like . . . I end up getting stabbed?" Raven nodded.

"It's too dangerous. Just . . . let me go. Stay with me until it's over Garfield. Please." Beast Boy felt shocked. She had never used his real name before; he didn't even know she knew his name. She was actually crying now, tears streaming down the sides of her face and getting lost in her purple hair.

"No way Rae. Give me the wound. I can heal from it easy; I'll just need some stitches. Just let me do it. I'm not going to let you go if I have a chance to save you Rae. I don't want to lose you."

"Gar, I can't let you . . . "

"Please Rae." He asked sincerely. He didn't even stop to think that he was literally begging to be stabbed by her; all he could think about were her large, venerable eyes, and this innate feeling that he had to protect her. Had to save her.

"The psychic bond . . . we would see everything in each other's minds . . . your past, your thoughts, your secrets . . . none of them would be secrets anymore." Beast Boy chuckled a little.

"There's nothing in my head I wouldn't tell you Rae, all you've ever had to do was ask." Raven smiled a thin smile that almost touched her eyes, and Beast Boy blushed. "Well . . . there is one thing you don't know yet that I guess you'll find out . . . I'd rather just tell you than have you discover it or whatever . . ."

"Gar this isn't really the time-,"

"I like you. I mean I really, really like you . . . maybe even love. I always have. Ever since we met. And I didn't want to tell you because I knew there would be no way you'd ever return my feelings, so I've kept quiet about it . . . I didn't want to bother you or anything . . .I just don't want it to be a shock."

"I like you too."

"And I mean I don't want you to feel guilty. . ." Beast Boy seemed to finally hear what she had said, "you . . . you what?"

"I have always liked you too . . . but I didn't tell you because I thought there'd be no way anyone could ever . . . forget it."

"No, what were you going to say?" Raven took a deep, shaky breath.

"I didn't think anyone could ever love me." Beast Boy was taken aback.

"I love you, and I will prove it to you, but first let's get you fixed up. What do I do?" Raven seemed to be crying again, but they seemed to be happy tears this time.

"Come here." Beast Boy leaned closer, and Raven put a shaky hand close to his face.

"I'm going to try to hold back the energy for long enough for us to form the bond, and then you're going to absorb the wound, and we will both wake up. I'll call for help as soon as we do, and I swear I won't leave your side."

"Okay Rae. I trust you." Without another word Raven placed her hand gently against his cheek, and Beast Boy's mind exploded. There were feelings and thoughts he had never before experienced. Memories of himself, of moments when Raven had thought about telling him, but held back. There was pain, a past he had previously known very little about that burst into reality. He was alone, afraid . . . terrified. There was happiness, discovering the Titans, eating pizza together, fighting crime. And then more pain. The endless loneliness she seemed to feel. The never ending search for acceptance, even though she had been accepted into the group already, she still didn't always feel it. And then his side seemed to rip apart, and he crumpled to the ground next to Raven in agony.

"Hold on Gar, it's almost over . . . I'm so sorry." Raven seemed to be sobbing now. Blinding white hot pain seared across his side, and then the world went black.

"CYBORG! CYBORG HELP!" someone close screamed. There were the sounds of running, panicked yelling,

"WHAT HAPPENED?!"

"THE WOUND I HAD, HE HAS IT NOW."

"HOW THE HELL!?"

"NEVERMIND! JUST FIX HIM!" more sounds, the sound of equipment being lugged out, the clanking of the first aid kit and the sound of someone ruffling through it. Beast Boy wanted very badly to open his eyes, but he couldn't. It was as if the pain from the knife cut was so raw that the extra effort it would take to open his eyes would kill him. Someone was holding his hand.

"I'm here for you Garfield. Just hold on. It's almost over . . . I'm so so very sorry." A prick in his arm, and a burning sensation throughout his veins . . . and everything faded away again.

Daylight streamed in through his bedroom window, he blinked his eyes open groggily. He looked around him. His room was a mess, as always. Dirty clothes and old food and video games were strewn everywhere. And amidst the chaos, a perfect purple head lay against his bed, next to his hand which was clasped within a grey one. He tried not to wake her as he awoke, but somehow, though he made no movement, she blinked her eyes open as well.

"You're awake." She said. He freed his hand from hers and brushed a strand of hair aside that had fallen in her face, marveling at the feeling of being able to do so. of how her hair felt like silk in his finger tips, and how the simple gesture seemed to send sparks of fire through both of them.

"_You're_ awake." He said back, with a weak smile. "And we're both alive." Raven sat up now, her eyes worried.

"It's going to take two weeks to heal." She mumbled, looking down at the bed in guilt. "I'm sorry." Beast Boy laughed a little.

"Sorry? Rae saving you is the best thing I've ever done. Not only are you alive, but now we know how we feel about each other . . . and that just makes life even more worth living." Raven looked up and blushed, a small smile playing across her lips. He scooted over carefully on the bed, containing his hiss of pain as best he could, and patted the space beside him. "Come here." Raven obliged, blushing even harder now, and crawled into bed beside him, leaning her head on his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around her, and looked down at her, the happiest he could remember being in a very long time. With his other hand he tilted her chin up and kissed her. It was an innocent sort of kiss, soft, slow, but it was the most beautiful moment in Beast Boy's life.

"I love you Raven. And I will always be here to save you." Raven smiled up at him, crying a little more now. She put a hand on his cheek.

"I love you too Gar." She whispered.


End file.
